Unite-d We Potentially Fall

Δημοσιεύτηκε: Ιουλ 11 , 2013
Συγγραφέας: Robin Copland

As early as May this year, Lord Mandelson, the former business
secretary and UK cabinet minister, warned that "a cabal at the top
of the Labour national executive was trying to exert influence",
and that the Labour leader, Ed Miliband "was storing up danger for
himself and for a future Labour government over parliamentary
selections". The row had blown up because Unite, the largest
trade union in the UK, and in a move reminiscent of the Militant
Tendency's tactics in the 1970s and 80s, had quietly been
infiltrating local labour constituency parties with their members
by paying their membership fees en bloc. The union had
specifically targeted seats where a selection was coming up.

Falkirk, a staunch labour town in the central belt of Scotland,
was one such seat. The constituency's sitting MP is Eric
Joyce. He will not be standing for the constituency in the
2015 election after admitting assaulting four people in a House of
Commons bar (you couldn't make this up!). Rumour has it that,
of the 200 or so local members of the constituency Labour party,
over 100 were already Unite members! This was too much for
the mandarins in the party's high places and the constituency was
placed under central control in June. The seat is a safe
labour domain and the last thing that the party wanted was Unite
having too much influence on the new MP's selection.

There is another problem here though and that is the fact that
Unite is the party's single biggest financial backer. Party
leaders had to weigh up the costs of negotiating (loss of control
in key Labour selection seats) against the costs of deadlock with
the union (potential loss of financial backing), before deciding
what to do next.

Well, the decision has been taken. On the front page of
the Times newspaper on Wednesday 3 July, the headline reads,
"Labour forced to step in as union takes over key seats". It
transpires that even after the Falkirk setback, Unite has continued
to try to gain control of key local constituency parties with
upcoming selections. It has allegedly written to its members
in the east London seat of Ilford, for example, offering to cover
their first year membership costs. The campaign is said to
have increased take-up by 10%. In response, Ed Miliband has
announced that the party has wrested back control of 14 of their
local constituency parties.

The leaders of Unite, as well as those of other trades unions,
are not happy. A Unite spokesman claimed that its tactic is
"a valid way of increasing the involvement of working-class people
in politics". In the Independent of Wednesday 10 July, Andrew
Grice writes, "Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB
union, predicted that only 10 per cent of its members would
decide to "opt in" to giving £3 a year to Labour. Mr Miliband
wants to scrap the present system under which union members have to
"opt out" if they do not want the fee automatically handed to the
party".

Neither is the Labour party happy - an activist in one of the
union's targeted seats claims that, "this is a naked attempt to buy
Labour party selections. If this was just a general effort by
Unite to recruit more members, why are they focusing recruitment in
areas where there is a selection coming up?"

In that regard, it is interesting to look at the reaction of
spokespeople. In all of his public statements, Miliband has
concentrated on the injustices and malpractices of what has been
going on. On the other hand, Len McCluskey, the general
secretary of the Unite union, has been concentrating on process
and, interestingly, attempting to shift the spotlight elsewhere by
flagging up, for example, Lord Sainsbury's financing of more
centrist MPs.

Miliband and his advisers have taken a long hard look at things;
they have weighed up the costs; and they have decided on this
occasion that, rather than negotiate with the trades unions, they
will pursue what they think is the right and fair policy; they will
impose their will against the unions and essentially fall out with
their biggest party financiers. Some will say that the
decision is foolhardy; others will point out the risks.
Miliband and his team calculate that the risk of losing control
outweighs the loss of potential financial benefits and have taken
their stance accordingly.

The lesson for negotiators? Sometimes, you have to stand
up for what you believe in and recognise that not everything is
negotiable. If you know your bottom line and if you have
guiding principles, it becomes easier to manage your way through
these difficulties.